Monday, November 21, 2016

Bengaluru: Close on the heels of Rustom-2, India's indigenously-developed, long-endurance, combat-capable drone successfully completing its maiden-flight, DRDO has decided to produce 10 such unmanned aircraft for induction into the Indian armed forces in the future.

"We have decided to produce 10 pilot-less or unmanned aircraft like Rustom-II, aimed at giving a boost to India's development programme for UAV," DRDO director S Christopher told reporters here.

He said, "Young DRDO engineers would work hard to make it successful. It would, at least, take one year to do it. We will also seek to get an order from Indian armed forces."

Christopher said development of nine prototypes of the advanced Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) would be done after the successful flight of the first such drone.

"The first flight will be followed by development of nine more prototypes of the advanced UAV for testing, after which the certification process will start," he said.

Christopher clarified that TAPAS-BH-201 (Tactical Advanced Platform for Aerial Surveillance-Beyond Horizon-201) will be in a non-combat role.

"Media reports are incorrect. Tapas is an UAV and not UCAV," he said.
21/11/16 PTI/News Today